Just got a decent sized earthquake here!

6.5 near Challis, which is in the middle of the state. Not sure what it was here in Boise, but I could hear the wood in the house being strained and all the lights were swaying all over.

That's a good one 6.5 up in the salmon River Mountains NE of Boise (72 mi west of Callis).
That's close enough to any big city. It can stop now!

Paste this into google or google earth and it will show location.
44.448°N 115.136°W

There was another earthquake in that area in 1983 that killed two kids and made a huge mess.

https://askascientistblog.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/challis.gif

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_O7ZWCNWVV...eanor+Mackay+Drug+Oct+28+1983+807+AM.jpg

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-gvu3uem2Z...A+Inside+p+earthquake+Internet+Photo.gif

Ironic, when I google it, map shows Shake Creek

Neil, felt it up here, also felt as far north as Bonner's Ferry, which is near the Canada border.
Kinda of a "roller", felt like being rocked in a cradle; probably wouldn't have noticed it if I was driving.
Seemed to last about 15 seconds, give or take.
Prior to that, it was snowing like crazy.

Taco Bell was giving away a free taco to anyone who just asked today. Coincidence?

Linky >> Free Taco

It made noise like it was super windy all the sudden, but the trees outside were not moving. Then the noise slowed up and everything started to shake pretty good.

Already had a tremor a few minutes later, but it was much weaker.

The bigger ones tend to be noisy, besides the racket everything in the house makes when it's being shaken.
The rollers are usually pretty quiet.
This one was apparently 6.5 down South, also felt it in Eastern OR.
I remember the Sylmar 7.1 long ago, and the 7.2 Frisco quake in '89; I was near the epicenter of both.
Both sounded like a locomotive was coming through.
Sylmar: Stuff was flying out of an overhead cabinet, hitting me. My '57 Vette was chained to the gas main 6 feet away. Probably got real lucky there.
Frisco: Watched multi-story buildings slapping each other, and a guy get out of his car to look for flat tires. 3 of my guys saw the double-deck highway collapsing behind them as they were driving home.

On 2/28/2001 I was in Duvall WA pulling a new ADSL line into a ladys back bedroom. It was a single wide mobile home. I was half way under and could see my fish stick rod in the floor.
Then the 6.8 Duvall Earthquake hit. I was flat on my back when the rollers started. Then the mobile home started swaying and bouncing on the cinder blocks. I rolled out to the skirting and kicked it out to get out from under the house. The lady thought I was somehow damaging her home and came running out the door just as I kicked the siding out. The ground was still shaking.
I have not been able to crawl under a house since.

Today, we did not feel this Idaho quake here.

Living in SO CA for over 55 Yrs I have felt some large shakers, 1971 Sylmar and some bigger ones, Landers and then big Bear a hour later in around 1986 I think and several others that got my attention. I would much rather feel the earthshaking than here a Tornado siren
Be safe everyone

There seems to be more quakes in Idaho than normal. This is the 2nd or 3rd I have heard about in the last month or so.

I wounder if Yellowstone is getting ready to pop in the next decade or so. The experts say its overdue.

Good friends moved to Boise from South Dakota in the past year to help plant a church. They all posted on facebook about the adding an earthquake to the bucket lists.

Luckily, it sounds like you are ok with minimal damage.

My wife and I are Univ. of Idaho grads and lived in Moscow from 1990-1995. Even with all the geomorphology classes I took (learning about the Great Missoula Floods, etc.), anything seismic related in Idaho was pretty much glossed over.

With that being said, I am a Santa Rosa, California native, and my earliest memory was riding out the 6.0ish earthquakes up there in 1969. Even though these were "only" at that level, they caused severe levels of damage in the S.R. downtown due to the city being built on a sedimentary basin. As a two year old, I still remember my dad having to navigate his way over all the broken glass downtown as we made our way in the family Mercury to his business on 4th Street so that he could check to see if everything was ok.

I've since experienced many earthquakes since that one, including several big ones in Japan. They never fail to get your attention by making you go over your mental emergency checklist.

Good luck, and hopefully it isn't a foreshock for the Yellowstone Super-volcano!

You can hide from a tornado and have a good idea when one is coming. Can't say that about about a quake. One also doesn't know if it's a pre quake to a bigger one. And yes I was in San Jose for the Loma Prieta shaker back in 89 as well as several others during the 20+ years I lived there.
I'll take the siren and a basement

30 years ago here in MI I was home, mid day, working at my desk and looking out a second story window. There was a very small earthquake announced later in the day. But as I sat there in perfect still and quiet I heard something. Looked out the window and saw the grass in the yards ripple like someone threw a rock in a pond. It must have been a fairly substantial "ripple" if I could see it from 20-30ft away. Looked about 3-6" high and 2-3ft apart.

^^^ I've seen that before when I was in SoCal.
Thought I was hallucinating. (Insert wisecrack here)

Lady I used to work with was in the California earthquake that happened during the baseball game (I think it was the one that collapsed the freeway decks). She said she went back to her place, grabbed what she could, and left town and never went back.

I felt it up here in Spokane. I was in the basement at my computer. My chair started moving back and forth. Freaked me out a bit till I realized what it was.

When did WA expand March to 91 days?

Felt it here in Southern, BC. Definitely agree that it was like being rocked in a cradle. I thought my blood pressure was going weird because it felt like.... you know when you have a throbbing headache and your whole body bobs to the rhythm of your heartbeat? That's about what I felt. It wasn't until an hour or so later that some friends of mine south of the 49th started posting about an earthquake that I put two and two together.